Literally, ask any friend working as SWE in any of those companies - they will confirm numbers. You are pretty much guaranteed to make that money in 5 years if you get promoted with average velocity.
Getting out of the SV bubble this is an insane amount of money. I boostrap my business and I make 40k a year. Most senior SWE around here make less than 100k.
If income is your goal, in this industry, I think that it makes more sense to maximize TC in your day job. SWE can reasonably make over $1m per year, from a single job.
If you’re not in FAANG or equivalent, work on getting there. Then if you’re not L7+ work on that.
Depends on who you are and what your growth potential is. I know SWEs getting offers in the 7-8 figure range. That's not in any way typical but if you're smart enough, hardworking, and get the right breaks hitting a 7 figure income isn't something I'd consider weird and is definitely FU money.
If you work in Stockholm you could easily get closer to 5k or even above that if you have some experience. If you work somewhere else the figure could be smaller.
being just a regular IT person with 15+years experience and getting paid fairly well for what the local market is, whats the chance of a normal person working at a place that pays $700,000 as a SWE? How do you even approach that? Does someone mid career have a chance to pivot?
~$500k is what some Amazon L6's and most L7's make. Don't think you can hit that in most Finance positions until VP level, unless you're in Quant finance in hedge funds but then the SWEs make that much too.
I would guess that it is not so easy to become one (since you failed at it till now), and, even after you succeed at that, the "easily make well over 6 figures" seems to me like being a tad bit optimistic.
Side question: Is correct English spelling required to become a SWE?
SWE will probably make between 250-500k. Quants who can come up with profitable trading strategies can make a lot more. Managers of trading teams can make over 1MM and sometime a lot over 1MM depending on how profitable their teams perform.
SWE who have deep subject matter experience are super valuable to these firms. Folks who understand how to write low latency code, FPGA work and other stuff like that. But the real money is in figuring how "how and what" to trade. Once that's done, the SWEs can bang out the code.
In SF, maybe. In most places, hardly. And keep in mind that entry level SWEs usually don't have kids that are at the age of heading off to Harvard, so they'd earn that income for a decade or two. That would probably put them somewhere in the range of the average income with their dividends alone.
I'm flattered that you think there are no SWEs who are capable of creating 3x as much value per year as I am. I think you're incorrect, but I'm flattered.
Do you think $120k is a reasonable expectation for a SWE with 2 YOE in this market? That's what I am shooting for, and still think is reasonable to expect, but on the otherhand if layoffs continue, I guess I may be forced to reconsider...
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